A Year of Possibilities
by Baloo
Summary: Sarah makes a New Year’s resolution and is determined to see it through. Goblin King and alcohol involved.


**Summary:**  Sarah makes a New Year's resolution and is determined to see it through.  Goblin King and alcohol involved.

**Disclaimer: ** Sarah, Jareth, Labyrinth—not mine.

**A Year of Possibilities**

It was nearly four in the morning on New Year's Day when Sarah Williams finally stumbled through the doorway of her bedroom, a very inebriated grin on her face.  She kicked off her shoes and dropped her jacket to the floor before flopping down onto her bed.  Her gaze was dreamily directed up at the ceiling, her fingers fiddling idly with the silky material of her shirt.

Ah, a whole new year of possibilities ahead, and she had so much to be grateful for… her family, her friends, her potential acting career.  There was only one thing missing.  Sarah's grin widened, a determined glint appearing in her eyes.  With only a little difficulty, she managed to pull herself up into a sitting position.

Hmm, now, what were the words?  She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, eyes focusing with an effort.  Oh yes, "I wish… that the Goblin King was here… right now!"

Down in the Underground, the man himself was busy booting one particularly annoying goblin right in the ass when he heard the request.  Annoyance registered briefly on his face.  Bored though he was, he didn't take kindly to the idea of being ordered about.  He retrieved children, when they were wished away, he didn't make appearances for idle reasons.

Absently, he readjusted his coat, deciding against adorning one of the long dark cloaks he usually wore during these dealings.  Transforming himself into the form of the snowy white owl, he flew out the nearest window, sparing his goblins his wrath for at least a short while.  Moments later, he made his dramatic entrance through an apartment window, and found himself face-to-face with someone he had never expected to see again.

"Jareth!  Happy New Year!" the young brunette declared enthusiastically, blowing her noisemaker in the Goblin King's face.

"Argh," Jareth replied in irritation, "What is it with you mortals and your noisemaking devices?"

Sarah giggled and blew the little instrument again.  Impatiently, Jareth reached out and snatched it out of her hands while she made a feeble attempt to stop him.  Of course, with her delayed reflexes, by the time she realized what he was doing, he already had it far out of her reach.

"Hey, give it back," she demanded, half-launching herself at him.

"Not on your life."  Jareth easily sidestepped the attack, and watched in surprise as Sarah tumbled from the bed to the floor.  But instead of being embarrassed, she remained on the ground, sending him an endearing pout.

"C'mon," she pleaded, and her big green eyes seemed to have increased in size, the eyelashes appearing more prominent than ever before.

The Goblin King could hardly believe what he was seeing.  Here was the girl who had defeated him and his labyrinth, the only person to ever do so, calling on him four years later—on the first day of the new year, no less—and trying to pout him into giving back her irritating noisemaker.  What the hell was going on?

Suddenly, Jareth's eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "Sarah, are you drunk?"

Sarah looked positively scandalized.  "Me, drunk?"  Then she hiccupped and proceeded to burst into a fit of giggles.  Yep, looked like it.

After a few gasping breaths for recovery, she managed to haul herself up onto the bed.  "Jareth," she said suddenly, and he almost started at the sound of his name coming from her lips.

"Sarah?" he replied, eyes still narrowed.

She patted the spot next to her on the bed.  "Sit down."  When he hesitated, eyeing the proffered seat warily, she rolled her eyes.  "C'mon, I won't bite.  Not unless that's your thing," she added with a grin that made the Goblin King lift one fine eyebrow.

Drunk or not, this certainly was an interesting side of Sarah.  Jareth decided to humor her, and took the seat, choosing to face her with one leg folded under him, the other dangling off the side.  Even in the ridiculous situation in which he now found himself, there was no reason why he couldn't retain his trademark air of superiority.

There was a long pause as he waited for her to speak—after all, she had been the one to call him.  And finally, she did.  "So… how you been?" she inquired casually.

"Oh wonderful," he replied sarcastically, folding his arms over his chest.  "I mean, how could I be anything but after your little foray into my life, during which time you managed to leave my labyrinth in ruins?  Just dandy in fact."

Apparently sarcasm was beyond Sarah at this point.  "That's nice," she replied, nodding absently.  There was another brief pause until she sent him a sideways glance, her eyes sparkling mysteriously.  "You look good."

"Why, thank you."  Out of habit, he clung to the sarcasm, despite her current inability to appreciate it.

"I mean, really, really good," she clarified, turning to face him fully.

"Uh, yes…" Jareth replied, unsure how he was supposed to take that comment.  Well, he knew what it _sounded_ like, but there was no way that Sarah could have meant it that way.  After all, she hated him.  She had made that abundantly clear during her time in the labyrinth, and there was no reason to think her opinion of him had changed during the past four years.  Why would it have, when they had neither seen nor spoken to each other since that night?

"I don't think you understand," she said slowly, bringing her legs up onto the bed and beginning a stealthy crawl across the mattress toward him.  There really wasn't much distance to cover, and in no time, she was hovering over Jareth, both hands resting on his chest.

As her lips lowered slowly to his, her long, dark hair falling like a curtain against the sides of his face, his mind desperately continued to attempt to explain away her actions.  She was not going to kiss him, because that was simply inconceivable.  Sarah did not feel that way about him.  This must be something else, there must be some other explanation—

"Like, good enough to—"  She never had a chance to finish, either her sentence or her action, because Jareth's hands came up to brace her face, and his words cut into hers.

"Sarah, what are you doing?"

Twin dark eyebrows rose to meet her hairline.  "Really, Jareth, I thought that was rather obvious."  It was the third time he'd heard her use his name, and he had come to the conclusion that he rather liked that way she said it.  If nothing else, it was an improvement over "Goblin King."

"Yes, it is.  And that's what I don't understand," he replied quietly, eyes smoldering with suppressed emotion.

"What's not to understand?" she asked mildly, and it was really difficult to hold a conversation with her so near, especially when there was skin-to-skin contact and her gaze was obviously leveled on his mouth.  That was when he realized the drawback in holding her face to keep her from kissing him—it left her hands completely free.

And apparently they were feeling very exploratory.

"Sarah!" Jareth yelped, releasing her and jumping away from those hands.  Unfortunately, he only ended up further on the bed, staring at her as he rested awkwardly on his elbows.

Sarah giggled, her eyes fairly dancing with mischief as she moved towards him, like a drunk but persistent jungle cat stalking its prey.  Jareth swallowed thickly as he watched her lower herself against him.  With the length of her body pressed against his, suddenly he didn't know how to react.  Actually, there was one surefire, natural reaction he could think of, but since Sarah appeared drunk out of her senses, he didn't he didn't think that would be right.  He didn't want it like this.

Well, there was one alternative that came to mind, being the fearful king and all.

"Sarah, get off me," he ordered.

Hmm, it didn't work.  Instead, the insolent girl reached up and pressed down on his chest, the extra weight forcing his arms to collapse beneath him, and pushing him flat onto his back.  Then her hands began to explore the expanse of his torso, moving in slow but sure motions until he had to concentrate merely to keep from shuddering under her ministrations.

"Sarah," he continued momentarily, noting her lack of obedience, "I fully expect you to cease your actions."

She failed to respond to his words yet again.  When his own hands finally came up in response, he had fully expected them to push her off him.  But instead, the treacherous things grasped her firmly by the waist, enjoying the feel of the curves beneath them, while his eyes looked searchingly into hers.  "Why are you doing this… now?"

"Huh?"  For a moment Sarah merely looked at him confusion dominating in her face.  "Oh," she replied, a simple smile appearing as the words slowly sank into the haze of alcohol and desire that had overcome her brain.  "Cuz it's on my list."

"Your… what?"

"My list.  Here," she said, sitting up and straddling his body between her thighs.  "I'll show you."  She reached into one of the pockets of her tights jeans, squirming and wriggling a little to grasp whatever she was looking for.  The movements were causing Jareth a considerable amount of discomfort, and it took all of his willpower to keep from grabbing the girl and tossing her onto the bed beneath him.  Finally, she pulled out a crumpled white sheet of paper, smoothing it out before handing it to him.

"New Year's Resolutions," he read the unsteady scrawl across the top.  "One, take up jogging.  Two, learn to play the piano.  Three, seduce Jareth," an eyebrow lifted in surprise here, but still he continued without pause.  "Four, climb Mt. Kilamanjaro.  Five, be nicer to Karen.  Six, get a…" he couldn't make out the last word.  "What does this say?" he asked pointing at the illegible group of lines and circles.

"Lemme see," Sarah demanded, snatching the list away from him.  "Hmm… get a… tattoo."  She looked back up at him with a big grin.  "Oh yeah," she said suddenly, tossing the note back to him, "I already did that.  Wanna see?"

Before Jareth could reply, Sarah had pulled herself off both him and the bed, and dropped her pants.  Well, not dropped them really, but lowered them a few good—very good, wonderful actually—inches, revealing the soft, smooth skin of her backside, protected only by the scant material of her panties.

"See it?" she asked, wiggling slightly to emphasize her point.

Yeah, he saw it.  As much as he tried not to look, tried to keep his gaze diverted from the creamy, pale expanse of flesh—

"Is that… a leprechaun?"  Jareth had taken the opportunity to pull himself back up into a seated position and now peered intently at the little figure.  Located dead center on her back, the design ended just where her panties began, the bright green of it shining starkly against her ivory skin.

"Um, yeah.  It's one of those fake ones you put on with a bit of water… I got it from Toby's Lucky Charms box.  Hey, you try to find a tattoo parlor open on New Year's Eve," she said defensively, tossing him a challenging look over her shoulder.  "Anyway, I thought I'd wear this at least until I could get a real one.  A non-leprechaun one," she added as an afterthought.

"Who put it on?" he asked suspiciously.  He knew it wasn't wise to linger on the topic, for surely there was nothing he could do if he didn't like the answer.  But, it was better than trying to fend off her not-so-undesired advances.

"I did," she replied proudly, still watching him over her shoulder.  "I'm real flexible."

Oh dear lord, Jareth thought, suppressing a rather un-Goblin King-like tremble.  Please don't let her demonstrate.

Well, someone was listening to his prayers, because Sarah was distracted from the subject as she began turning and stepped forward, for she'd forgotten to pull her pants back up.  She suddenly stumbled, and she would have had a painful introduction to the floor, had Jareth not leapt up from the bed to catch her.  She dangled momentarily in his hold, both of them curved forward, heads turned toward the floor.  His one arm was around her waist, and the other just below her breasts, high enough so there was contact.

On second thought, Jareth contemplated, unable to ignore the sensation of the soft flesh against his arm, maybe it would have been a better idea to just let her fall.

From her awkward position, Sarah managed to arch against him, her backside grinding against the entire front of his body.  "So does this mean we're gonna have hot monkey sex now?"

And then Jareth did drop her.

"Oomph," she managed, bracing herself with her hands and knees.  Utterly undiscouraged, she rolled over and stared up at him with an open expression.  "You wanna do it on the floor?"

There was hardly anything that took the Goblin King by surprise, but this day, and this girl—ahem, woman—before him had managed to prove the exception.

"Sarah," he told her tightly, jaw clenched with the effort, "We are not going to have sex—hot and monkey, or otherwise."

"Why not?" Sarah demanded, latching onto her bed and pulling herself to her feet.  "And don't tell me you're not interested, because if you wanted me to believe that, you shouldn't have worn those tights, Mr. Goblin King," she said, staring pointedly at a certain region of his anatomy.

And she managed it all without so much as a blush or any other indication of embarrassment.  Unfortunately for Jareth, the same could not be said of him.  With as much dignity as he could muster—which, to his credit, was still a fair amount despite circumstances—he sat down on the bed, casually reaching for a throw pillow and placing it on his lap.

"Because you're drunk," he replied, calmly, reasonably.  Calm and reason, he decided, was exactly what he required when dealing with the intoxicated.  That, or he could simply toss them into the Bog of Eternal Stench, but somehow he doubted that would be the appropriate solution in this case.

"I had a few drinks," she conceded.  "But I am not drunk.  I do not get drunk.  I am sensible.  Sensible Sarah—that's me."  Her hands were on her hips, a dignified expression on her face.  And she would have carried it off too, if it hadn't been for the fact that her pants were still unbuttoned, unzipped, and riding low on her hips.  "'Sides, it's New Year's… party time… everyone has a few to celebrate.  Except the designated drivers and nuns.  And maybe even the nuns."  Then she looked at Jareth curiously.  "What about you?"

"What about me?" he replied.

"What were you doing before I called you?  Don't tell me you don't celebrate New Year's Eve."

"I don't," he answered coolly.  "This is a mortal holiday, based on mortal calendars.  The Underground doesn't function according to Aboveground rules of time."

"Hmm," she looked thoughtful for a moment as she mulled over his words.  Then she gave an indifferent shrug and a single, "Whatever," before pulling down her pants in one swift movement.

Eyes widening, mouth dropping open, he tried to avoid the siren call of the vision before him.

Don't… look… directly…

Too late.  Already the image of smooth long legs and lacy black panties was forever imprinted in the Goblin King's mind.  His breathing ragged and his mind working desperately to deny his body's inevitable response, he was in no shape to resist when Sarah snatched away the protective pillow and tossed it across the room.

"Now, what were we doing?" she asked, a fake look of concentration on her face, before her expression lit up with an equally false look of remembrance.  "Oh yeah," she said suddenly as she crawled into his lap and forced him to the bed.  "This."

With her sitting so close, and so exposed, Jareth couldn't react.  He didn't dare try to push her from him, just in case he should accidentally make contact with that bared flesh, but compliance was not a choice.  And the situation was only worsened when she abruptly pulled off the silky blouse, revealing the matching black bra underneath.

Damn these mortals and their Victoria's Secret!  There was only so much temptation that even a Goblin King could be expected to endure.

"Sarah, why are you doing this?" he asked again, because she had never really given him an answer the first time.

"It's.  On.  My.  List," she said, punctuating each word by undoing a button on his flowing white poet's shirt.

The same response as before, and though it hardly explained a thing, Jareth decided to take a different approach.  "Sarah," he interrupted, hands coming up to grasp hers before she could remove the now unfastened shirt that kept him from her eyes.  "The fact that it's on your list doesn't necessarily mean that you should be doing it right this instant.  I don't see you getting up and preparing for your first jog just yet."

His gaze burned intensely into hers, but she didn't back down.  "But this is so much more fun than jogging, wouldn't you say?" she asked, voice husky and face close enough to distract him.  She slipped her hands out of his.  Gently, her fingers began to trace the expanse of his chest, the flesh being exposed inch by inch as she progressed along the trail.  "Isn't it?"

Now, the Goblin King had never been jogging a day in his life, but he knew in no way could it rival this, even if the whole experience was an excruciating pleasure.  Painful because, despite his body's impulses, his mind—and heart—knew he should resist.

"Sarah," he whispered, closing his eyes, trying to shut her out, but only finding each sensation all the more pronounced.  Like a blind man, his other senses came to life to compensate for the loss.

"Jareth," she replied, her hands now reaching for his, moving them up to her own chest so that he was cupping her through the bra.

And in that instant he was lost.  He rolled them across the bed so he came out on top, resting between Sarah's legs, and encircled by her arms.  One of her hands rested on the back of his neck, and the other atop his shoulder.  Her ankles hooked around his calves, keeping him pinned against her even if he had wanted to escape.

His mouth sought out hers for their first real kiss.  Tentative at first, then more insistent, lips pressing firmly, tongue seeking entrance, which was gladly granted.  After a thorough, though not entirely complete examination, they pulled apart.

Breath ragged, he whispered into the chestnut cascade of her hair, "Four long years."

He could almost feel the smile with which she answered, her own voice as subtle as a spring breeze.  "An eternity."

He released a sigh of contentment before returning his attention to exploring her with his mouth.  Nibbling her ear, tracing a path down her throat, one hand caressing her thigh, the other, a breast.

Suddenly, a foreboding sense of awareness made him pause in his efforts.  Sarah's breathing was too calm, too even, not at all indicative of a woman in the throes of a passionate embrace.  Slowly, hesitantly, Jareth lifted his head to gaze upon his love's face.  Just as he suspected.  She had fallen asleep.  Well, rather, passed out cold, the alcohol in her system no doubt having caught up to her.  But it seemed wrong to attribute the peaceful expression that claimed her face to a drunken stupor.

A desperate laugh escaped his lips as he buried his face momentarily against her throat.  His precious Sarah had gotten the better of him once again.

After a while, he lifted himself up, shaking his head in a mixture of amusement and exasperation.  A mild struggle, and he managed to disentangle himself from Sarah's arms, letting them slip down, one hand falling to the bed at her side, and the other curled against her chest, just above her heart.  Her lips were parted slightly, her head turned minutely to one side, and her hair a pool of chocolate beneath her.  Even scantily clad in the little bits of ebony lace, she managed to pull off an air of innocence and purity.

The Goblin King sighed slightly, staring down at the prone figure and seeing what had almost been, the wish that had been minutes away from fulfillment.

Suddenly, he grinned, and had the sleeping girl had been awake to see it, its predatory nature might have caused her some alarm.  If nothing else, he knew now that she had not forgotten him—even after all this time—just as he had not forgotten her.  And the four years that had passed between them had brought a great deal of change and awareness.  Little Sarah had indeed grown up.

And he had far from been forgotten.

Slowly, reluctantly, he dragged himself off the bed, pulling up a blanket to cover Sarah's sleeping form.  It wouldn't do to leave her like that, uncovered, exposed, and vulnerable while he wasn't there.  Placing the blanket up to her chin, he reached out with the back of his hand for one final touch, stroking her soft cheek.  Like an angel in her sleep, though he knew better now.

Just as he was about to whisk himself back to his cold castle and his unruly brood of goblins, Jareth paused, his attention diverted.  He reached across the bed and picked up the forgotten piece of paper, smoothing it out once more to read:  "Three, seduce Jareth."

A triumphant smirk appeared on his face, and he took the sheet, folding it neatly, placing it in his pocket.  Evidence.  Trophy.  A promise to which to hold her.  It hardly mattered.  All he knew was that he had 364 days during which to see Sarah's resolution fulfilled.  He just needed one during which she was sober.

The Goblin King spared one last glance at the girl resting peacefully on the bed, and a fond smile found its way to his lips.  A year of possibilities.

Fini


End file.
